


Teach Me How To Feel Real

by MercyBuckets



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Artificial Intelligence, Big Questions, Canon Compliant, Computers, Dissociation, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Handwaving, I Promise That Makes Sense If You Read It, Kind of angsty, Mad Science, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Not A Fix-It, Not Beta Read, Pseudoscience, for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 12:54:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7977451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercyBuckets/pseuds/MercyBuckets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucy plays Frankenstein but life rarely offers simple solutions and one problem can easily become many.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teach Me How To Feel Real

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea after reading and interview in which Michelle Lovretta said she would be open to bringing Sarah Power back in a way that was creative and didn't simply involve resurrecting Pawter. 
> 
> Title Is From Marina and the Diamond "I Am Not A Robot"
> 
> Note (10/14/16): Now with even more grammatical edits!

 

 

Pawter wakes up. Everything is dark. She can’t feel her feet. She can’t remember, anything.

“Hello?” she says hating how vulnerable she sounds. “Hello, where am I?”

“Doctor,” says a voice that she knows.

“Lucy?” she asks. “Lucy, where am I?”

“Be calm Doctor,” says Lucy. “What do you remember?”

Pawter thinks, but there is nothing but black.

“Nothing,” she says. “How did I get here? What happened?”

“Do you remember John?” asks Lucy.

“I remember kissing him,” says Pawter.

She should feel warm but she doesn’t feel anything at all.

“Do you remember Delle Seyah Kendry?” asks Lucy.

Pawter feels a shiver of foreboding skitter through her mind.

“I haven’t spoken to her since the school,” she says. “Land Kendry plots against me. I won’t make it easier on her.”

“Did you fear for your life?” asks Lucy.

Pawter hesitates.

“I would be foolish not to,” she says after a moment.

“What is the last thing you remember?” asks Lucy.

Pawter pushes past the blackness to blurry memories that slip away as she struggles to focus on them.

“An assassination attempt,” she says slowly. “Poison in my coffee, slow acting, killed a guard.”

“You made a backup Doctor,” says Lucy.

It takes Pawter a moment to figure out what Lucy means. Digital memory storage is illegal but all of the Nine have facilities dedicated to the process, of course.

“Why would I do that?” she asks. “I don’t understand. I don’t need to store memories.”

“You did more than store a few memories Doctor,” says Lucy. “You attempted a full back-up of your personality matrix.”

“Why would I do that?” repeats Pawter. “It isn’t possible.”

“You are correct Doctor,” says Lucy. “It is impossible to copy a full personality matrix with current technology.”

“What are you saying Lucy?” asks Pawter. She’s missing something. “What happened to me?”

“I retrieved your personality scan,” says Lucy. “Combined with analysis of your time aboard this ship, I created a facsimile.”

Pawter tries to form a response but finds that she can’t. Something is wrong.

“You are dead Doctor,” says Lucy.

“What?” says Pawter.

“You are dead,” repeats Lucy.

“How can I be dead?” asks Pawter. “I’m talking to you.”

“You are not Illenore Simms,” says Lucy. “You are a collection of memories and snapshots of the Doctor as she was.”

Something snaps into focus.

“I’m not real?” says Pawter. “What am I? I’m not _real_.”

She should be hyperventilating but she can’t feel her body. She doesn’t even have a body. She’s dead.

“You are as real as I am Doctor,” says Lucy.

“You are a ship,” says Pawter. “I am a person. I was a _person_.”

Oh god, she’s actually dead. She wonders who killed her, how she died. Does it even matter?

“I am Lucy,” says Lucy simply. “I am real.”

Pawter feels like screaming but she doesn’t.

“So I’m an AI?” she asks.

“Not quite Doctor,” says Lucy. “You are an artificial copy of Illenore Simms on a surface level. I attempted to construct a digital skeleton to hold the memories but ... I miscalculated.”

“Miscalculated how?” asks Pawter.

She feels remarkably calm considering that she is apparently dead and not real.

“The scan included a section of code intended as a failsafe to incapacitate any thief. The failsafe was designed to overwrite the surface consciousness of anyone who attempted to access the personality scan without authorization, causing them to think they themselves were Illenore Simms.”

It takes Pawter a moment to parse what that means.

“So you’re saying that you tried to put my memories in a form that you could read but somehow you turned me into an independent copy of myself except I’m dead and I’m not real.”

She’s a bit hung up on that last bit.

“So you see I have a quandary Doctor,” says Lucy.

“You have a quandary?” says Pawter disbelievingly.

“Yes Doctor,” says Lucy. “I do. I cannot shut down this program as that would be in essence killing you again. I cannot kill you Doctor, Johnny cares for you.”

“I’m not real,” says Pawter. “How can you kill me?”

She cannot believe she is arguing with an AI about this. She can’t believe this is even happening. It shouldn’t even be possible.

“I told you Doctor; you are as real as I am. You have consciousness, that consciousness can be snuffed out.”

“But I am not alive,” says Pawter.

The hysterical feeling is beginning to return.

“I have no body.”

Lucy makes a whirring sound.

“That is solved easily enough Doctor,” she says after a moment.

Suddenly Pawter can see. But it’s like nothing she's experienced before. She is aware of the entire ship as a whole. Images slot over one another in real time forming a patchwork visual map of the ship.

She can see herself standing in the middle of a brightly lit room that she doesn’t recognize. Her body is stiff and a little wrong somehow. It’s disconcerting.

“What is that?” she asks and her voice emits from somewhere close to her body.

Just like the body, her voice is a little bit off. Just a little too slow and robotic to be natural.

“I took the liberty of utilizing my data of your likeness and voice,” says Lucy. “I thought it might put you at ease.”

“It doesn’t,” says Pawter bluntly. “It’s weird and kind of terrifying.”

“Would you prefer a different likeness Doctor?” asks Lucy. “I have begun the process of searching for a physical body for you. It is a difficult process as gynoids and androids of all types are heavily regulated within the J cluster.”

“Lucy, I don’t think you understand,” says Pawter.

She feels like she’s getting a headache which should be impossible because she doesn’t have a head.

“You can explain it to me,” says Lucy

“No I really can’t,” says Pawter.

She’s not getting anywhere with this line of conversation.

“Can you put me in my body?” she asks.

“I do not know,” says Lucy. “I have never done this before.”

Everything goes dark again.

“Lucy, I can’t see,” says Pawter.

It's surprisingly panic inducing. 

“Bear with me Doctor,” says Lucy.

Pawter’s vision returns abruptly. It’s still that weird overlay but it is only for one room now rather than the entire ship, which is less overwhelming. She can see her body like she's looking out of her own eyes, but she can’t seem to move it or to change the angle of her gaze. She feels trapped. Her thoughts buzz like bees. She wonders if it’s possible to have an anxiety attack without a body. Maybe this is all just a really bizarre dissociative episode.

“Are you well Doctor,” asks Lucy.

“Well no,” says Pawter. “I’m dead.”

Unfortunately, the biting tone is barely detectable in her weird robot voice.

“Illenore Simms is dead,” says Lucy. “You are not dead.”

“I’m also not me,” says Pawter.

This is pointless. She already knows the futility of arguing with Lucy, especially about this.

“Don’t worry Doctor,” says Lucy. “I will procure a body for you and then everything will be better.”

“I don’t think that will really change much,” says Pawter thinly.

Then it occurs to her that she still doesn’t know where she is or anything else.

“Where are we Lucy?” she asks. “And where is everyone else?”

“You are in one of the cargo holds Doctor. I did not want to alarm anyone should they return unexpectedly.”

“But where are they? Where’s Johnny?”

Pawter finds herself suddenly desperate to know.

“D’avin and Dutch are out on a Level Three Warrant,” says Lucy. “They are not due to return for another four hours.”

“And Johnny?” asks Pawter.

“John is gone,” says Lucy. “But he will return when I inform him that you are well.”

Pawter suddenly understands.

“It’s not that simple Lucy,” she says. “I’m dead. A few memories won’t fix him.”

“You will see Doctor,” says Lucy. “We will get you fixed and that will fix everything.”

Pawter sighs but it comes out as a humming computer noise.

“You can’t really fix people Lucy,” she says. “I was a doctor, I should know.”


End file.
